Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES WINTER 2015 saI-NaTIONal.ORg 24 ChERyl BENSmAN-ROwE Cheryl Bensman-Rowe was initiated as a National Arts Associate by the Rho Chapter in October. A mezzo-soprano, she has performed extensively in North and South America, Europe and Japan. She received a 1998 Grammy for singing on the Nonesuch recording of Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich. A former member of e Waverly Consort and the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, she has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, and the St. Louis Symphony. She has sung at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Wiener Festwochen, Holland Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival. She has recorded for Nonesuch, ECM, and CBS Masterworks. In Wisconsin she has sung with Madison Opera, the Madison Symphony, Oakwood Chamber Players, Madison Bach Musicians, Token Creek, and Present Music of Milwaukee. Ms. Bensman-Rowe received degrees in Voice Performance at Boston University and performed with ensembles such as the Waverly Consort and Western Wind Vocal Ensemble. In 2000, she founded the Madison Early Music Festival with her husband and fellow National Arts Associate Paul Rowe, Professor of Voice at University of Wisconsin-Madison. e festival is a week filled with world-class performances by ensembles as well as guest lectures, hands- on classes and participant concerts, all housed within the university. dR. glORIA COOk Dr. Gloria F. Cook was initiated as a National Arts Associate by the Lambda Iota Chapter in October. Dr. Cook is a Professor of Piano at Rollins College. In addition to teaching applied piano at Rollins, she also teaches courses in piano pedagogy, piano accompanying, keyboard harmony and piano literature. Dr. Cook is in the process of publishing her own keyboard harmony text entitled Step by Step to Keyboard Harmony. She is a piano pedagogue who initiated the piano program and the Rollins Achievement Day at the Rollins Community School of Music. She is frequently asked to judge various state and regional competitions in Florida. She holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Music and was a winner of many competitions including the Cleveland Institute Concerto Competition, the Springfield Symphony Concerto Competition, and the Ohio Federation of Music Club State Competition. As a soloist, she performed with the Springfield Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony and the Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra. She was also a chamber music player at the Tanglewood Music Festival and the Charleston Piccolo Spoleto Festival. She coached extensively with Martin Katz in collaborative repertoire and with Angela Cheng and Earl Wild in the work of Clara Schumann and George Gershwin. Dr. Cook and her sister, Cynthia Lawing of Davidson College, are well known as duo-piano artists, especially in the Orient. ey won many duo-piano competitions in Hong Kong and have given numerous concerto performances and recitals in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau, as well as in the United States. As duo-piano artists, they have performed at many colleges such as Birmingham Southern College, Southwestern University, Wittenberg University and Ohio University at Athens. dR. TANIA lEóN Dr. Tania León was initiated as a National Arts Associate by the Northern New Jersey Alumnae Chapter in December. Dr. León is highly regarded as a composer and conductor and recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. Born in Havana, she has been profiled on ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, Univision, Telemundo, and in independent films. León's opera Scourge of Hyacinths, based on a play by Wole Soyinka with staging and design by Robert Wilson, received over 20 performances throughout Europe and Mexico. Commissioned by Hans Werner Henze and the city of Munich for the Fourth Munich Biennale, it took home the coveted BMW Prize. e aria "Oh Yemanja" ("Mother's Prayer") was recorded by SAI Honorary Member Dawn Upshaw on her Nonesuch CD, e World So Wide. Commissions include works for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, Koussevitzky Foundation, Fest der Kontinente (Hamburg, Germany), Cincinnati Symphony, National Endowment for the Arts, NDR (North German Radio) Sinfonie Orchester, American Composers Orchestra, e Library of Congress, Ensemble Modern, e Los Angeles Master Chorale, and e Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, among others. Her works have been performed by such orchestras as the Gewaundhausorchester, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the China National Symphony, and the North German Radio Orchestra. She has collaborated with authors and directors including John Ashbury, Margaret Atwood, Rita Dove, Jamaica Kincaid, Mark Lamos, Julie Taymor, and Derek Walcott. NaTIONal aRTs assOCIaTE a man or woman who is nationally recognized for distinguished contribution to the arts dISTINgUIShEd mEmBERS Cook DISTINgUIShED continued from page 23

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